Everyone will soon have AI super powers because of this MIT’s new Machine Learning Tool

In the near future you might not need to be more specific than an easily accessible touchscreen device, and you have access to any existing data set to create a powerful prediction tool. A new experiment by researchers of MIT and Brown University has added the capability to their 'Northstar' interactive data system to produce a machine-learning model instantly which can be used with its exisitng data set to generate useful predictions.An example provided by researchers is that doctors can use this system to make predictions about the likelihood their patients have of contracting specific diseases based on the patients medial history. Or a business owner can use his historical sales data to develop a more precise forecast, without a ton of manual analytics.

Researchers named this feature as "Virtual Data Scientist," or VDS of the Northstar System, and it seems that it can actually change the human equivalent, especially in settings where one would never actually be readily available or resourced anyway. Your average doctor’s office doesn’t have a dedicated data scientist headcount, for instance, and nor do most small- to medium-sized businesses for that matter. Independently owned and operated coffee shops and retailers certainly do not have access to such information.This new tool is built on automatic machine-learning techniques, that are becoming 'au courant,' because it helps in expanding the number of people for whom AI technology is accessible.Researchers are working on Northstar since 2014 and it presents a blank canvas that is compatible with many platforms, and then users can upload their own data sets, which appear as boxes on the interface. They can then drag and drop those in the centre area of ​​the canvas and then draw connecting lines to indicate to that they should be processed with an algorithm of their choosing in combination with one another.So basically, they can theoretically grab a dataset giving details of the metabolic rate of patients, and the other gives details of their age, and then derive from that how often a specific disease occurs across those two factors. Now, with the new VDS feature, they will be able to combine the input to generate an AI-based analysis, along with these joint factors.

Researchers have also designed this VDS system so that it’s actually the fastest application of automated machine learning to date. This is another important piece to make it worthwhile for everyone, because it’s not really possible to imagine people working with this digital whitetable and then waiting so many hours for results to come out. Next up, it’s going to improve error reporting to help ensure that non-expert users not only find it easy to use, but also get clear indicators when they do something wrong so they can fix it next time.For more updates on Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Data Science stay tuned with us at LunaticAI.